Synthetic Sincerity

At the University of Southern England, the Synthetic Sincerity Lab is developing AI characters capable of true emotional authenticity. To teach their machines what sincerity looks like, they license the documentaries of filmmaker Marc Isaacs — who, in exchange, is allowed to film their process. What begins as an academic collaboration quickly unravels into a playful collision of fact and fiction. Guided by an AI character (co-created with Romanian actor Ilinca Manolache), Isaacs navigates this strange world, filming the work of Lynn — a rebellious and charismatic AI researcher from Beirut — and following an Uyghur chef who volunteers as a subject of study. Can this chef, in AI form, find the words he cannot express as a human being? Blending humour, invention, and philosophical inquiry, Synthetic Sincerity reflects on what is happening to the human face in the age of artificial intelligence — and what this might mean for the future of empathy, truth, and cinema itself.